Eighth inning not a friendly one as Stars fall to Braves

By Aaron Morse

The Huntsville Stars (22-22) scored three runs in the top of the eighth to take the lead, but the Mississippi Braves (22-22) responded with six of their own as the Stars fell by a score of 9-5 Sunday afternoon.

The Stars found themselves in an early 2-0 hole as the Braves scored one in the second and one in the third against starter Amaury Rivas.

But Brett Lawrie smacked his third homer of the season in the top of the 6th to cut the deficit to 2-1.

Rivas’ final inning of work featured a Cody Johnson RBI single to give the Braves a 3-1 lead. His outing was nowhere near his best, but he managed to only surrender three runs in six innings, despite giving up 11 hits. He struck out four and walked one.

It looked like the Stars would be in good shape when they got to the Braves’ bullpen in the top of the eighth. With one away and the bases full, Caleb Gindl singled home Lee Haydel to draw the Stars within one. After that, Chris Errecart reached on a force-attempt at second base. One run would have scored anyways, but a throwing error allowed everyone to be safe and for two runs to score. The Stars would leave the bases loaded when a strike-out and a fly-out ended the inning.

The 4-3 lead would be short-lived. Jim Henderson had tossed a scoreless seventh inning, but the Stars brought in Nick Green for the eighth and he did not fare so well. Back-to-back singles put runners on first and second with only one away. An Alex Romero double plated both runs and just like that it was 5-4 Braves. A sacrifice fly, a single, an intentional walk, and two more singles completed the scoring and when the dust cleared it was 9-4 Braves.

The Stars got one back in the top of the ninth on a Lawrie RBI single, but that was all she wrote.

Juan Abreu (2-0) got the win out of the bullpen for the Braves while Nick Green (0-1) took the loss.

Lawrie and Lee Haydel had big days at the plate for the Stars as Lawrie went 3-4 with 2 runs scored and 2 RBI. Haydel also had a multi-hit game as he went 2-4 with a run scored.

Both the Smokies and the Diamond Jaxx lost Sunday, so the Stars did not lose any ground in the North Division. They remain four games back of Tennessee.

The Stars will look to take the rubber match of the five game series Monday night. They’ll send Alex Periard (2-2, 4.05 ERA) to the mound. Join us on the Huntsville Stars Radio Network beginning at 6:50pm Central Time.